Latest Information Security news from ireland and around the world

Attacks on manufacturing industry continue to rise

The frequency and sophistication of cyber attacks continues to rise globally according to research data in the Q2 Threat Intelligence Report released by NTT Security.

Four findings are of extreme interest and concern:

Cyber attacks were up 24% globally during Q2 2017.

Manufacturers continue to be a key target for cybercriminals.

67% of malware attacks were delivered by phishing emails.

The speed of attacks continues to increase exponentially once proof of concept code is released.

Attack profile of the manufacturing industry

The manufacturing industry was the most heavily targeted industry across NTT Security clients during Q2 ’17, accounting for 34 percent of attack activity. It was also heavily targeted across NTT Security client networks throughout 2016, appearing in the “top three” in five of the six geographic regions. No other industry appeared in the top three more than twice.

86 percent of malware in the manufacturing industry were variants of Trojans and droppers.

Reconnaissance accounted for 33 percent of all activity aimed at manufacturing clients in Q2 ‘17.

“The motivations for these attacks are often criminal in nature, including extortion via ransomware, industrial espionage, and theft of data such as account numbers. What poses an even greater problem is that when these breaches are successful, yet go undetected, they allow hackers to establish footholds in organizations’ networks where they have free reign to wreak havoc over extended periods. This is a problem if we consider that 37% of manufacturers recently surveyed, indicated they do not have an incident response plan in place. This is very concerning as manufacturers’ IT security liabilities often impacted not just the manufacturing organizations, but suppliers, as well as related industries and consumers,” said Jon Heimerl, Manager, Threat Intelligence Communication Team, NTT Security.